By NewsDesk @infectiousdiseasenews
Infection with dengue virus makes mosquitoes more sensitive to warmer temperatures, according to new research led by Penn State researchers. The team also found that infection with the bacterium Wolbachia, which has recently been used to control viral infections in mosquitoes, also increases the thermal sensitivity of the insects. The findings suggest that global warming could limit the spread of dengue fever but could also limit the effectiveness of Wolbachia as a biological control agent.
“Dengue fever, a potentially lethal disease for which no treatment exists, is caused by a virus, spread by the bite of the mosquito Aedes aegypti. This mosquito is also responsible for transmitting a number of disease-causing viruses, including Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever,” said Elizabeth McGraw, professor and head of the Department of Biology, Penn State. “Aided by increasing urbanization and climate change, this mosquito’s range is expected to overlap with 50% of the world’s population by 2050, dramatically increasing the number of people who could potentially be exposed to these viruses.”
In recent years, research groups around the world have attempted to control these viruses by infecting Ae. aegypti with the bacterium Wolbachia pipientis and then releasing the mosquitoes into the environment, McGraw explained.
“Wolbachia have been shown to prevent viruses, including dengue, from replicating inside mosquitoes,” she said. “Importantly, Wolbachia are passed down to the mosquitoes’ offspring, making them a self-propagating and lower-maintenance approach to disease control in the field.”
McGraw noted that both dengue virus and Wolbachia infect a variety of tissues throughout a mosquito’s body, and although they are not toxic, they do evoke an immune stress response.
Read more at Penn State
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Clearly there has been discouragingly insufficient political courage and will to properly act upon the cause-and-effect of manmade global warming and climate change. (Neo)liberals and conservatives are busy criticizing each other for their beliefs, politics and/or pseudo-scandals thus diverting attention away from the planet’s greatest polluters, where it should and needs to be sharply focused. Albeit, the ‘conservatives’ seem to not mind polluting the planet most liberally.
Collective human existence has for far too long been analogous to a cafeteria lineup consisting of diversely societally represented people, all adamantly arguing over which identifiable person should be at the front and, conversely, at the back of the line. Many of them further fight over to whom amongst them should go the last piece of quality pie and how much they should have to pay for it — all the while the interstellar spaceship on which they’re all permanently confined, owned and operated by (besides the wealthiest passengers) the fossil fuel industry, is on fire and toxifying at locations not normally investigated.
Far too many people still recklessly behave as though throwing non-biodegradable garbage down a dark chute, or pollutants emitted out of exhaust and drainage pipes, or spewed from sky-high jet engines and very tall smoke stacks — or even the largest contamination events — can somehow be safely absorbed into the air, sea, and land (i.e. out of sight, out of mind); like we’re inconsequentially dispensing of that waste into a black-hole singularity, in which it’s compressed into literal nothing.
But, fortunately, there’s still some hope for spaceship Earth and therefor humankind due to environmentally conscious and active young people, especially those who are approaching/reaching voting age. In contrast, the dinosaur electorate who have been voting into high office consecutive mass-pollution promoting or complicit/complacent governments for decades are gradually dying off and making way for voters who fully support a healthy Earth thus populace.